Saturday, August 05, 2017

WHY DOESN'T THE NRA JUST SUPPORT DEMOCRATS?

The National Rifle Association continued a streak of publishing decidedly aggressive video content Thursday.

This time, the group’s video wing, NRATV, said they were going to “fisk” the New York Times, a slang journalism term for uncovering factual inaccuracies in reporting.

“We’ve had it with your constant protection of your Democrat overlords,” spokeswoman Dana Loesch says to camera, in a clenched-teeth, Sorkin-esque rant, adding: “We’ve had it with your pretentious, tone-deaf assertion that you are, in any way, truth- or fact-based journalism.”

There was some confusion over Loesch’s assertion that NRATV viewers were going to fisk the Times — to many, it sounded like she was advocating a much more familiar relationship:

In spite of that, the video is agfgressive and threatening. What's with all the NRA threats against the mainstream media these days? ("Consider this the shot across your proverbial bow," Loesch says in the clip.)

Simple answer:

This has NOTHING to do with guns; the NRA and Dana Loesch want a culture war to sell guns because there's no boogeyman in the White House. https://t.co/hGdLqnaIEd

Background checks related to U.S. firearm purchases suffered their deepest quarterly decline in over three years in July, suggesting a sales slump despite price discounts aimed at improving customer demand following President Donald Trump's election.

Fears that Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton would win the election and limit gun sales led to record purchases last year, but Trump's surprise victory has had a reverse effect, with 2017 sales falling and investors selling gunmaker shares.

U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation background checks in July fell 25% to 907,348, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Firearm lovers bought guns relentlessly throughout the Obama years, as the NRA and other pro-gun propagandists warned of mass confiscation. That never happened, but the same propagandists warned of mass confiscation if Hillary Clinton won, even though that wouldn't have happened either. It didn't happen in the eight years her husband was president. Gun lovers always believe this nonsense. They never learn.

Gun sales would still be booming if Hillary were president now, even though there's zero chance she would have taken anyone's guns. Even if she'd had long enough coattails to generate a couple more Senate victories for the Democrats, she'd still have had a Republican House, which would block any gun control measures (none of which would have involved confiscation in any case). And even if both houses of Congress were controlled by Democrats, united Republican opposition and a handful of pro-gun Democrats would have ensured failure of any gun control legislation. Ultimately, gun control is a political suicide mission, as both her Democratic predecessors learned.

So why doesn't the NRA simply favor Democratic presidential candidates? I realize the NRA can't openly endorse a Democrat -- but why not downplay the presidential race and find a way to back the Democrat surreptitiously? Compare the slight risk of mild federal gun restrictions to the much greater risk of a consumer base that loses its motivation to buy for four years. The choice is obvious.

Maybe we're seeing the new strategy at work. Maybe the NRA's overwrought trash talkers will be told in the future to stick with denunciations of the mainstream media and rampaging dusky-skinned hordes, and drop the electioneering altogether. The inauguration of President Kamala Harris in 2021 would be a hell of a lot better for sales that President Trump (or Pence) returning to office. So the NRA should be working to make that happen.